16 July 2010

Freshfields advises Agricultural Bank of China on US$19.2 billion IPO

International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has acted as Hong Kong counsel to Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC) on its US$19.2 billion initial public offering (IPO) and dual listing on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges. If the underwriters’ overallotment option is exercised, the transaction will raise US$22.1 billion, making it the world’s largest ever IPO.

Freshfields also advised Agricultural Bank of China on the cornerstone investments in its IPO, including investments by eleven major sovereign, institutional and corporate investors, for a total of US$5.45 billion.

ABC's A shares in Shanghai were priced at RMB 2.68 per share and its H shares in Hong Kong were priced at HK$3.20 per share.

With the completion of this transaction, Freshfields becomes the only law firm to have acted on the IPOs of all four of the "Big Four" Chinese state-owned banks, being China Construction Bank (2005), Bank of China (2006), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (2006) and now ABC.

Teresa Ko, China managing partner at Freshfields, commented, ‘It is a tremendous privilege to have been involved in this transaction, which was a transaction of great importance for China.’

Antony Dapiran, Beijing managing partner at Freshfields, commented, ‘Our ability to complete a deal of this size and complexity on such a tight timetable is a real testament to the strength and depth of experience of our integrated China team.’

The Freshfields team was led by partners Teresa Ko and Antony Dapiran, assisted by a team of lawyers from our Beijing and Hong Kong offices comprising Liu Yingli, Yin Xu, Nicole Lew, Christina Fu, Zhang Jianqing and Yin Can.

ABC was the first commercial bank to be established in the People’s Republic of China in 1951 and the State’s first specialised bank set up in 1979. Its headquarters are in Beijing and it has nearly 24,000 branches throughout China, Hong Kong and Singapore. ABC has 320 million retail customers and 2.7 million corporate clients.

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